OER: Open Educational Resources

Attribution of Sources

Giving credit or attribution to sources that have been re-used or re-mixed is essential. Open Washington created this easy-to-use Open Attribution Builder. The Creative Commons Recommended Practices for Attribution explains how to create attributions and provides examples.  To remember what should be included, remember the acronym: TASL. Creative Commons recommends attributions include:

• Title: What is the name of the work?
• Author: Who allows you to use the work?
• Source: How can people find the work?
• License: How can you use the work?

A proper attribution of the flyer on this page would be:

 “Creative Commons Licenses Explained” by eCampusOntario is shared under a CC BY 4.0 International license

Creative Commons Licenses are standard copyright licenses applied by content creators to specify how the work is shared, attributed, and reused.

Creative Commons licenses range from the most open CC BY  to the most restrictive CC BY-NC-ND. 

CC0 is a public domain dedication. No attribution or credit for the original author is needed. Adapt in any way you wish and even use it commercially.

CC BY - must give credit (attribution) to the original author. Adapt and use commercially, but you must give credit.

CC BY-SA - is a CC BY license plus "Share Alike". Must attribute it and share any adaptations you create with the same CC BY-SA license.

CC BY-NC is CC BY plus "Non-Commercial". Use it with attribution, adapt it, but you cannot sell it or profit from it except to recuperate costs of printing, for example. 

CC BY-NC-SA is CC BY plus "Non-Commercial" plus "Share Alike". Use it with attribution, adapt it, but you cannot sell or profit from it, and you must share it again using CC BY-NC-SA.

CC BY-ND is CC BY plus "No Derivatives" You can use it with attribution but you cannot adapt it.

CC BY-NC-ND is CC By plus "Non-Commercial" plus "No Derivatives". Use it with attribution. You cannot adapt it, sell it, or profit from it except to recuperate costs or printing for example.